


Heart of Gold

by PTomlin



Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: But mostly porn, General abuse of italics, I APOLOGIZE, M/M, and now with more porn and angst!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-18 00:58:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PTomlin/pseuds/PTomlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Pitch Black finds a golden bracelet in his lair, he doesn't think much of it.  It is not of great concern to him that he does not recognize the item, does not remember how it might have come to rest in his abode.  It might have been something he lost, a life time ago, or something one of his 'Mares carried back as a bit of sport. It might be gremlins leaving gifts.</p><p>He puts it on anyway.</p><p>What he doesn't realize is that he has just accepted a gift of courtship. And that the Sandman is not a spirit easily discouraged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My submission for Blacksand Week! 
> 
> Also, what is that title, I mean really. I'll try to come up with something slightly less cheese-tastic by Wednesday, but if any of you are title whizzes, feel free to put some suggestions in the comments. As always, if you see any grievous typos, let me know, I edited a lot if it from my phone.

The first time Pitch Black finds a golden bracelet in his lair, he doesn't think much of it.  It sits crookedly on a small outcropping of rock near the hollowed globe that counts believers with its twinkling lights, and Pitch has not been by this way in several weeks, does not come down often, much, anymore.  While revenge is a perfectly acceptable course of action, he has never been one to wallow in his defeat, and the lights are a reminder he does not need.  So it is not of great concern to him that he does not recognize the item, does not remember how it might have come to rest in his abode.  It might have been something he lost, a life time ago, or something one of his 'Mares carried back as a bit of sport. It might be gremlins leaving gifts.

He puts it on anyway.

He is not sure why.  But it is striking in its contrast to his person, the brushed band carved as it is with tiny stars, and it lays with a comfortable warmth against his skin.

That night he goes out, goes to work, and the fear is a heady thing upon his tongue.  He may have failed in his gambit for dominion over the Guardians, but this, this they cannot take away from him, those Four-turned-Five. There will always be fear. And he will be here to savor it, sustain it, encourage it, just a little, just enough.

The Nightmares do not feed themselves, after all.

But he has been defeated, and the Guardians are not known to be gracious victors, and it is for this reason that he ducks into the shadows when he catches sight of Sanderson's golden streams. They weave themselves into spaceships and fuzzy things with paws and a variety of the little man's customary sea life as they sift through windows and doors to slumbering believers all across the little town that Dreamweaver and Nightmare King, for this one moment, share.   

 Pitch is debating the merits of leaving now versus lingering to corrupt a few of the Sandman's weaker dreams when the butterflies find him.

He still does not know what they mean, but it is always, _always_ the infernal butterflies. He has complained, in the past, perhaps once or twice, expressed his annoyance, voiced his irritation, but he has never asked, not really.  Something tells him he would not like the answer Sanderson would return.

The past is the past and should remain so.

One of the insects lands lightly upon his wrist and he glares at the offending sand creature but does not shake it off.

He has not had such a good night for weeks, with the children's fears bursting in the darkness like overripe fruit, painting the air with their intoxicating fumes.  Fall is coming fast upon the continent and for all the humans' inventions and advances, there is a part of their collective spirit that whispers to them of the enduring and cyclical dangers that exist within the changing of the seasons, the inherent threat present in the cold that sits in their bones like cotton.  He breathes it in and feels loose for the first time in ages.

But with the butterflies bombarding him in clouds, the little Dreamweaver surely knows that Pitch is near. He does not fancy a confrontation to spoil his mood.  He will come back later, when Sanderson has gone, when the dreams are winding down or have twisted themselves beyond recognition, and then he will have his fun.

___

Three days later finds Pitch Black pacing the hallways of his lair in a fume.  Something is wrong. Sanderson's butterflies are relentless. Pitch cannot show his face on the surface for any length of time before the golden flapping insects are upon him, with Sanderson himself not far behind, no doubt.  For three nights he has ventured upwards, tried to spread fear, here and there in small measure, nothing grand, but something to sustain him--! Each time, he has been chased back into the darkness.  His head aches with the withdrawal and the anger and frustration and utter _confusion_ surely are not helping matters.  Confound Sanderson! Of all the Guardians he expected to be set upon by for further abuse, the last he had anticipated was--

He hears a chime, the bell tones of metal on stone, and tension straightens out his spine.  Not with fear, no, he is a King in his castle, but someone, someone else has invaded that castle and they will certainly be taught the meaning of fear.

Pitch Black draws himself up to his full height and glances behind him.

Five gold rings lay in scattered disarray in a trail behind the train of his robe.

_What...?_

He looks around, suspicious.  But there is no one, not even a  Nightmare, in sight.  No eyes watch him from the shadows but _someone_ has been here.  Trinkets do not move on their own, even within his realm.

At least, not the last he checked.

He bends to examine the nearest ring. A triple strand fashioned to appear woven, polished and gleaming a soft yellow in the sparse light that infiltrates his shadows. But it is as it appears, merely a ring. There are no spells or foul energies that he can detect. Simply an unfamiliar metal, inconspicuous and innocent.

Pitch snorts.

He reaches out, slips a shadow-formed finger into each circle and collects the five to him. The shadows deposit the rings into his waiting palm with a light _chink_. He tilts his palm, watches as they roll together.  They are all different, each unique unto itself, and all gold. No gemstones or jewels.

They are warm, like the bracelet.

He brings up his other wrist, holds the two mysteries near one another, and they glint the same shade of rosy gold back at him.  A suspiciously... _familiar_ shade.

_Sanderson?_

No, no, that is paranoia, there is no _evidence_...he is jumping to conclusions, _leaping_ at them. Sanderson is surely not involved. Pitch smiles to himself, shakes his head. Ridiculous, really.  The bracelet had been lost and is now found.  The rings, well, he is still not sure. A spell gone wrong, perhaps, things like that used to happen much more frequently.  And the fact that he has been beset by golden butterflies after he started wearing the bracelet...is simply a...coincidence.

 _Why_ would Sanderson send him trinkets? Pitch massages his eye sockets with his fingertips, the gold rings clenched tightly in his fist. Some manner of peace offering, perhaps? A symbol? Five rings for _five_ Guardians, now that they'd added the Frost brat to their ranks? But if that were the case, what then of the bracelet? A symbol for him, perhaps? Set apart? Bigger...?

Stars, this was stupid.

Pitch sneers to himself and stalks off the bridge, toward his personal quarters.  There is no symbolism, these things are _not_ a gift from Sanderson, he is jumping to conclusions and _being_ _ridiculous_ /.  He blames the headache.  The fear he has been deprived of. He blames _Sanderson_ , shadows take him! Sanderson and his _butterflies_ that make _no sense_ and follow him around like golden puppies, tiny golden spies that don't give him a moment of peace--!

He puts on the rings out of spite.

\---

It is raining when he next ventures to the surface. It is inconvenient, makes his shadows heavy and lethargic, but the children will be quaking in their beds, the crash of the thunder and the scrape of tree limbs forming clawed shadows in the night doing half his job for him.  Besides, Sanderson likes the rain even less than he does; his dreams tend to warp in the deluge and never turn out how he intends them to. No, Sanderson prefers to remain above the raging blackness of the clouds on nights like these, and Pitch pins his hopes on the gamble that he will not be sought out by tiny golden minions in the foul weather.  

His hopes hold out for nearly an hour before the first butterfly attaches itself to him.

He flits in and out of shadows, sopping wet and desperately trying to shake the creature, but no, make that _creatures,_ because every time he steps back into the rainy evening there are _more of them_ dancing dizzy circles as they try and fail to weave through the pelting drops.  

When the first one succumbs to the elements and meet its death on the slick shiny pavement Pitch can only stare, a strange horror holding him enthralled.

The rest take advantage of his stillness to hide themselves beneath the train of his cloak.  

“For the love of--!” Pitch sighs. “As soon as I move you’re going to go tumbling out into the rain. And I don’t even care!” he adds, striding forward pointedly, and the butterflies scatter, points of gold sent spiraling in the darkness, a trail of fairy lights bobbing in his wake. Nuisances, the lot of them.  Let them drown themselves!   He certainly had no care for the fate of a handful of sand-made _insects_.  

He glowers on a street corner.  The butterflies cluster around him, begging for attention, bombarded by the downpour tearing holes in their little wings.  

“For Mim’s sake, go back to your master, find a child to humor, _something!”_  They don’t heed him, of course they don’t, they’re under orders.  He doesn’t know if they are even intelligent.  But he knows that his Nightmares are, and the thought of these tiny bumbling creatures thinking and dying because he refused to come out of the rain...

“Oh, come on then.” He huffs and rolls his eyes and leads them under a particularly spacious awning along a storefront and is so busy wringing out his shadows that he does not notice the larger golden glow coming from a nearby alcove.  

_Pitch?_

The sandspeak startles him so badly that he whirls, overbalances, and falls backward on his ass into the rain.  

And the golden pastry himself, Sanderson ManSnoozie, is annoyingly dry and watching him with concern.  

He resists the urge to reach for his weapon.

Cursing every entity he knows, Pitch picks himself up and returns reluctantly to the shelter of the awning.  His cloak and leggings stick to him and his hair is dripping into his eyes and off the tip of his nose and he’s _still surrounded by butterflies_ and happens to be facing down his sworn enemy under the awning of a dingy storefront in a rainstorm somewhere in a tiny town in the pacific northwest.  

So much for his plans for the evening.

“Sanderson,” he sniffs, drawing himself up despite his sodden state.  

The little man has the audacity to hide a smile behind his hand.  

“Funny, yes, alright, laugh at me then.”

 _You are a bit wet,_ he says, quivering with silent giggles.  

“It is not my fault I have to go to such great lengths to avoid your little _spies,”_ Pitch sneers, and then decides he might as well continue wringing himself out. He gathers the folds of his cloak, twisting it, shaking it out, gathering and twisting again. Sanderson continues to watch with undisguised amusement as a puddle forms beneath his feet and Pitch again rolls his eyes.  “Have your laugh at the Boogeyman. It isn't as if I can sink any lower. And don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, either. Having your little abominations follow me around every time I show my face outside my own realm.  Keeping tabs on me, making sure I stay weak, making sure I stay _beaten_.  I’m sure you and those other freaks are having quite the time lording yourself over my sorry state, I have no doubts that--what are you _staring_ at?”

Somewhere in the midst of his diatribe, Sanderson has lost the glimmer in his eye and is gazing at Pitch’s hands as he turns his wrists and flexes long fingers through the wet fabric.  

_You’re wearing the jewelry I gave you._

“Wea-- _what?”_ Pitch splutters, gaping down at the ring on his hands, the bracelet at his wrist. _“You_ left me these?

 _You’re wearing them,_ Sanderson says, wonder sweeping the frown from his forehead.   _Do you--do you like them?_

“Do I--? _Sanderson._ What is the meaning of this--this utter nonsense? Why are you leaving--” _Treasures_ , his mind supplies. “-- _trinkets_ in my _home?_ ”

 _You_ do _like them!_

“You--! I--!”

 _You’re going to deny it, but I can tell.  You’re_ wearing them.

Pitch scoffs. “They have a certain aesthetic appeal. And I thought they were _lost,_ not some misguided attempt at, at, _gift giving.”_

And now, now Sanderson looks downright smug.   _I’d say the attempt was relatively successful, seeing as you_ are _wearing them, and that was my intended purpose; the goal, if you will.  The goal that has been fulfilled, meriting the distinction of ‘success.’_

Pitch doesn’t know what to say. His brain is caught somewhere between outrage, disbelief, and a confusion bordering on fear, because he doesn’t understand, he can’t understand.  Why would Sanderson give him these things? Why would Sanderson give him _anything at all?_ Why are they standing in a small town in the pacific northwest in a rainstorm talking to each other like civilized ancient spirits? Why aren’t they fighting, even now?

“ _Why?”_ he asks simply, desperately.

Sanderson smiles at him indulgently.   _You know better than to ask me that._

“I don’t know, one of these centuries you may answer a straight question with a straight answer!” Pitch hisses at him.  Confound Sanderson!  Confound him and his stupid smile and his stupid hair and his stupid creampuff complexion!

_I can't show my appreciation for an old friend?_

"We have never _been friends,_ you sentient sandbag. You've been living in your own dreams for too long if you imagine anything different." He almost misses Sanderson's flinch, and he pretends he does anyway, shocked at the sudden wash of guilt he finds within him.

 _Maybe I just wanted to see you shine,_ Sanderson says softly.

Pitch looks at him, eyes narrowing. “There is more. There has to be more.”

_If you haven’t figured it out by now, you don’t deserve an answer._

“I didn’t even know that it was you who had sent them until just a moment ago!”

_It shouldn’t have taken that long._

Pitch wants to fist his hands into his hair and pull, he wants to scream at Sanderson, he wants to be _dry,_ for Mim’s sake. And Sanderson gaze is steadily shifting from pleased to disappointed.

 _You don’t remember at all, do you?_ he asks at last.

“Remember _what?_ What am I supposed to be remembering?”

_Nothing,_ Sanderson says. _Nothing, it isn’t important.  Forgive me, I’ll--stop._

“Don’t you dare.”

He doesn't know why he says it. It surprises him, possibly even more than it surprises Sanderson, who is staring at him like he suspects some sort of catch or trap. Pitch is looking for one himself, if he is honest, and until he finds it, he can't trust himself to speak again, and stares mutely back. 

_I am sorry, about the butterflies. I didn’t realize they were such a burden to you. I meant them also, as a gift.  They’re very fond of you, I’m sure you’ve noticed._

"I had, noticed," Pitch manages hoarsely. 

More gifts laden with ties to a past he does not remember, a link in his mind begging to be made but forever rent by time and circumstance.  

 _I could...draw them off, for a little while at least, so that you could have some peace._ Sanderson speaks like he's afraid of startling him, the sand whispering even more softly than usual. It is fitting, Pitch thinks.

He certainly feels like running.

"Do that," he says. 

_I don't know how long I can keep them away, though._ He shrugs, his smile returning. _They have minds of their own, you see, and they worry about you._

He will not ask. He will not ask why they worry. He will not ask about Sanderson's shy smiles and sad glances, not tonight. So he nods, and Sandy nods, and when he realizes it isn't enough, he forces himself to continue. 

"That will be sufficient. I--" Appreciate it? No, no that won't do. He can't encourage-- He won't be caught dead-- Ah, blast it. "I need to go, now," he says. "I am...very wet."

Sanderson nods again. He is looking unsure again, as well, probably spurred by Pitch's _entire lack of sense_ and Pitch doesn't know why, yet, but he cannot stand to see it. Throwing on a rakish smirk and as devilish a pose as he can manage while half-drowned, he calls the shadows to him and asks,

"What will you send me next, I wonder?"

The grin that breaks out across Sanderson's face as he steps into the portal is worth every one of his questions.

\---

True to his word, Sanderson keeps his minions in line, and Pitch spends a glorious week hunting fears with no sign of golden _anything_.  Finally, he feels like he can breathe again without inhaling dreamsand, can move without stumbling over golden wings that swarm and golden eyes that watch.  He is freer than he has been in weeks.  

The absence is like an itch beneath his skin.

He doesn’t know what to make of it, because he can’t _miss_ the vile things, it simply isn’t possible.  That would make even less sense than Sanderson’s sudden proclivity to give him things.  No, he was just so used to the nuisance by this point that he was merely feeling its absence.  It is not a loss, he is not _lonely,_ Mim no, not for _Sanderson_ and his _pets._ It is a...readjustment, that is all, it is--

Something shiny is winking in and out of the corner of his vision as he paces. The mid-morning sun filters in and casts long shafts of light that pierce his domain. One of them has caught something in its rays, and Pitch forgets his quandary and goes to investigate.  

The something blazes at him from a smooth-topped stalagmite that rises from the floor like a pedestal. Pitch squints around the flash as it catches the light just right and steps forward, hand outstretched

It is a gold collar. He brushes his fingers against the surface and something like wings brushes the back of his mind.  He owned...something, like this, once.  The faint remembrance makes its easier to slide the warm metal around his throat, to fasten its clasp at the back of his neck, to venture to the nearest reflective surface to examine the way it sits just above his clavicles.  It is a handsome thing.  

Like the rest of the jewelry he has received, there is nothing innately unusual about the collar.  The fact that it feels so oddly familiar, though, and the fact that it is a collar, decorative as it may be, unquestionably sets it apart from any of the previous offerings. The symbolism is not lost on him, although he is sure he only understands half of it.  

In the wake of their conversation, it is as much a mystery as it is a gift. 

He can’t help but feel like wearing it _means something._ Something more than the other items he has so far received. The others he could take off, discard, if he wished.  He could, technically, do the same with this, but some innate part of him knows that it could never be so easy.  Some line has been crossed, some contract sealed.  He has entered into a covenant the terms of which he does not know and with whom the other party is a figure he barely trusts, rarely fully understands.  

He doesn’t know what he has agreed to, yet.  

But he is beginning to have an idea of what he wants.   

\---

The first set of earrings are a puzzle, momentarily stalling him where he discovers them, set atop a plush silk pillow in his favorite chair in the library.  Upon examining the make, he realizes that he'll have to pierce his ears to wear them.  He spends a long time in front of a long mirror, holding up the shining baubles to the sides of his face, examining the flash of them from this angle and that, before deciding there is no harm in adding a hole or two.  He can always take out the jewelry later, let the tiny marks heal.  No one would even know.

He wears his new gift out the next night as he goes about his rounds.

Two more pairs follow.

Pitch sighs and makes the necessary modifications.

\---

The gifts come more frequently after their meeting in the rain.  And while the butterflies have returned, Pitch finds that he does not mind them overmuch. No, what bothers him is that Sanderson _knows_ when he has added a new piece of gifted finery to his ensemble, but that Pitch has yet to catch as much as another glimpse of the giver.  

It doesn’t mean he doesn’t look.

What follows is a string of gold, several strings, and bands and cuffs and coils, each more gaudy than the last--rings to span the length of every one of his long fingers, tiny golden chains to crisscross his chest and torso, bracelets and arm bands and elegant strands that hang heavy with golden ornaments, circling every limb, covering him crown to toe in a delicate network of Sanderson’s creation. And all presented in the most unorthodox manner. Left sneaked into crevices in the walls, draped over his bed, hidden in abandoned corridors, carried back by Nightmares, strung between stalactites, piled on pillows and shelves and stacks of books, and yet not one of them is handed to him directly.  

It is a game he plays gladly, a never ending amusement that sends a thrill of something molten through him at each new discovery. He has not had so much quiet attention in centuries. By the end of a month he has amassed a small fortune in the strangest treasures under the Moon, all glowing their soft sandy glow, each stunningly unique in its craftsmanship.  

Pitch wears them all.

He finds himself every evening dressing first in lines of light and before shrugging into his cloak of shadows.  And then he finds himself not bothering to remove them at all. It is strange, how things so new could feel so soon a part of him. He is afraid to examine the sensation of completeness that settles over him as he is encased in a cage of golden fetters.  

He has gotten used to the trail of golden butterflies that follow him around like effervescent courtesans. He wears his gifts into the night, more gold than shadow, moving like a melody of star-chatter that he half remembers from a thousand lifetimes ago.  

Sanderson could easily be playing him, pushing him into a well-laid trap that involves draping him in decadence.  Perhaps one night the golden baubles will spring to life and strangle him, for all he knows. Perhaps they will drag him to a cage deep within the earth and hold him captive there once more with their brilliance.  Perhaps they will corrupt his Nightmares grain by grain, leaving him to weaken and fade with each season’s passing.

Perhaps he is a fool.

Perhaps.

And yet, he cannot seem to bring himself to care.

If this strange affection will be his downfall, he decides, so be it.  

\---

_What are you playing at, Sanderson?_

The larger gold ring confuses him. He cannot figure out what it is at first, although not for lack of trying. He balances it on top of his head like a tiny tiara, tries it on each of his fingers just for the sake of being thorough, and finally sets it on the mantle and stares at it crossly.  The only thing it seems to resemble is a napkin holder, but so far all of his gifts have been wearable, and unless Sanderson has finally run out of ideas and is moving toward more domestic implements...no, no, that couldn't be it at all.

He leaves it where it sits above the fireplace and steals dirty glances at it all evening long; its innocent presence rests like a flame at the corner of his vision, an irritatingly sparkling cloud that haunts his mind.  

It's taunting him.

He knows it.

By the end of the day he has given up and left it where it sits, determined to ask Sanderson what this one means, what its intended use might be.  That is, if he ever sees the little man again. Pitch is beginning to think he is avoiding him. He needs something to take his mind off of Sanderson, off of odd golden gifts whose functions he cannot identify, off of the new and strange attachments he seems to be forming for flocks of sand-born butterflies and their sand-formed master. Something to relax the tension that has formed between his shoulders, that sits like a weight on his brow.

It isn't until he climbs out of the bath that night that he happens to glance down and realizes.

Oh, _Sanderson_.

Blushing to his roots, Pitch wraps the towel around his waist and stalks to the mantle, dripping water as he goes.

The thick gold ring winks back at him.

Well what in Mim's name was he supposed to do with _that?_


	2. Chapter 2

It takes him another week, but he finds Sanderson on top of a mountain range in Norway, high enough that there is snow settled into the rocky crags of the peak. His entourage has been trailing him across the continents for nearly the last hour, and they mill about his feet as he steps across the uneven terrain.  It is twilight down below, the villages stretched out across the land obscured in shadow, but Pitch can feel the small spikes of fear that occur as children jump the gaps beneath their beds to clamber beneath the sheets, as they pull the covers over their heads, careful not to let any limbs dangle over the edges, as they gaze anxiously at their closet doors, sure that every flicker of imagined movement in the darkness is the Boogeyman come to get them.

They are small fears, but he owes his existence to their irrational resilience, and Pitch can’t help but smile.

Sanderson is staring out across the landscape, watching the sun as it dips, bright molten pink, beneath the horizon. He doesn’t look up at Pitch’s approach, even though some of the butterflies break off their persistent circling to brush golden wings against their master’s skin, and after a moment Pitch’s gaze is drawn outwards in emulation, trying to see what Sanderson sees in the rays of the dying day.  

Above the shadows, everything is golden.

The clouds, the snow, the mountain beneath them all glow with it, and every raised point draws long shadows behind it like furrows. It is pretty, he supposes, but he has always held a greater fondness for the colors of the night. The long purples and deep blues, the subtle shifts in tones of grey to grey to deepest black.  The edges of silver.  The occasional flare of gold.

He wonders, not for the first time, how Sanderson feels about the night.  Because if Pitch is the spaces between the stars, Sanderson is the stars themselves. He is a creature of light forever relegated by his duties to the realm of darkness.

Pitch wonders if he resents it.  

_I know you didn’t come to watch the sunset._

Pitch startles, and how, how does Sanderson always manage to unsettle him so thoroughly? He ignores the whisper of sand-laughter and settles down on a ledge, rustling like a chime as the gold he wears shifts and settles. “I do hope I’m not intruding,” he says, glancing sideways.

_Look at you,_ Sanderson says, the sandspeak sighing into the growing darkness.  His tone is one of awe and Pitch feels those dual curls of fear and elation somewhere in his core to know that awe is for him.  

_I like sunsets,_ he says. _This one looks especially good on you._

Pitch looks down, holds out his hands, and he is gleaming, the last bits of light catching and reflecting in the gold that drapes him, each piece burnished to a fiery glow against his skin.  

He has never been adored. He has been a shadow for centuries and a monster before that and his name has been spoken with both a shiver of dread and the thrill of terror, but this, this sanctimonious whisper from Sanderson’s heart is utterly foreign to him. He doesn’t know how to react to it, doesn’t know how to _feel_ in its presence, doesn’t know if he can trust it, half of his instincts screaming _trap,_ and the other half...longing.  

Sanderson watches him like he is something to admire.  And Pitch isn’t sure if he deserves it.

“I, uh. Came to ask you something,” he says. “And really, I’ve been searching for you for ages, have you been intentionally avoiding me?”

_I was giving you space,_ Sanderson says innocently.

“No, you knew it would drive me insane, so you hid.” A thought occurs to him and he narrows his eyes.  “How long have you been waiting for me to come and find you?”

Sanderson pauses a moment before answering.   _A long time._

And Pitch is beginning to realize that everything, all of this, is connected.  That it all means something greater to Sanderson that it doesn’t, yet, mean to him.  That this moment on a mountaintop in Norway, the moment where Pitch seeks him out, is a moment Sanderson has been waiting for for an eternity.  

_What did you want to ask me?_

And stars, he’s blushing again.

“I, er. I was wondering... It concerns your latest gift, I’m sure you realize, and I was wondering what your--intentions, might be.”

_My intentions._

“Stop laughing!” he cries, and he is horrified when he is unable to stop the grin that breaks out across his own face. “You are a dirty, dirty little man!” he tells Sanderson as he nearly falls over clutching his sides.  “What do you expect me to do with something like that?”

_Use your imagination._

Oh, he had.  There had been lots of imagining.  

_Are you wearing it?_

“Of course I’m not wearing it!” he says irritably, but he can _feel_ the heat rising in his neck now, and even in the half light he is sure the color on his face is obvious.

Sanderson’s eyes light up. _You’re lying._

He crosses his legs and smooths out his cloak, clinking and scattering butterflies.  “How would you know,” he says, “You’re a creampuff, not a polygraph.”

_Oh my stars, you’re wearing it!_ Sanderson practically _sings,_ vibrating with glee.

Pitch hides his embarrassment behind gold-encrusted fingers. “Why are we talking about this?”   Yes, fine, he’d worn it! It had seemed like the thing to do, really, he’d worn the rest of the jewelry, after all, and it was so obviously a challenge, he simply had to--

He was having some second thoughts.  

_You’re the one who brought it up._ Pitch glances sideways from beneath his hands and Sanderson is biting his lip. _Can I see?_ he asks.

Pitch isn’t sure what his face does in that moment because his _brain shuts down._ And Sanderson is looking at him, eager and expectant and stars help him, the request alone is _doing things_ to him.

“No!” he says firmly. “No, you cannot!”

_But I gave it to you!_ Sanderson pouts.  

“That doesn’t mean I have to strip for you where anyone can see, that is not how this works!”

_How does this work?_ Sanderson asks.  

Pitch doesn’t know.  He has never not known anything so much in his whole life.  But he wants, oh, he wants.  Sanderson is ancient and enemy and unattainable in his mind, that is their history, that is their state, but now--

Sanderson is making offers, offers of...what, exactly?

“The butterflies are watching,” he says obstinately, and he knows he’s stalling, and he doesn’t care that Sanderson probably knows too.  

_They don’t care what you’re wearing._

“Sanderson,” he says, and yes, that is desperation clinging to his voice, because he’s confused _and_ turned on “This isn’t just sex, is it? There’s something more you want, and I don’t know--”

A tendril of dreamsand flicks across his lips like a cat tail, silencing him, and Sanderson floats closer to hover at eye level.  

_I’m not asking for anything more,_ he says, solemn. _I...alright? Just this._

“Sanderson--”

_Call me Sandy,_ he insists, this time pressing one golden finger briefly against Pitch’s mouth. _Pitch. Do you want sex or not?_

Pitch nods. “Yes.”

Sanders-- _Sandy,_ grins. _Your place or mine?_ he asks, eyes tracing the golden edge of the collar Pitch wears.

His mouth is dry and his breath is tight and so are his _pants,_ damn it all.  Questions and doubts still plague him, but he wants this, he does want it, should stop thinking and take it, but he doesn’t want to learn the catch, doesn’t want Sandy to regret, after.  Because this is not just sex, no matter what the little man says.  Even the way he looks at Pitch now, like he is everything--

Sandy presses his lips against his own and Pitch forgets his protests in the burn of dreamsand and softness and warmth.  It is the first kiss he remembers, but there is something so familiar about the lips against his that his ribs seem to ache with the force of it. When they break he is panting and Sandy is the one flushed rosy and he has made up his mind.

He can always demand answers in the morning.

“My place,” he says, and calls the shadows to swallow them up.  

\---

He drops them right in the middle of his bed, an extravagant thing, designed so that he can stretch out his limbs in any configuration he chooses and still not meet the edges.  Sandy is straddling his waist and pushing him back against the sheets before he even has a chance to orient himself.

_I should have realized everything would be black._

“Like everything on your little island isn’t gold,” he answers.  

Sandy shifts forward and presses his lips to Pitch’s throat, trailing kisses until he reaches the upper edge of the collar, and when he begins to trace it with his tongue, Pitch throws his head back with a gasp.  He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and the jewelry across his torso is digging into his skin under Sandy’s weight but he barely registers it it at all, because _stars,_ he never knew he could _feel_ this much.  

And this is just the beginning.

Sandy’s hands find the edges of the shadow cloth at his shoulders and tug until Pitch is pushing himself awkwardly up to his elbows so he can wiggle his arms out.  Sandy’s mouth never leaves his skin, even as he flops back against the bed.

“ _Ah!_ Eager, aren’t we?” Pitch breathes, and then breaks off in a moan as Sandy’s fingers trail down his chest.

_Sensitive?_ Sandy counters, pulling back to grin down at him.

Pitch laughs, but Sandy does not return to his ministrations. His eyes trail the gold that runs in circuits around Pitch’s limbs, across his chest, down to his hips, and when Sandy shifts backwards to continue his inspection, he brushes firmly against Pitch’s crotch, and Pitch arches with a cry, hands clutching at the bed.  

_Sorry,_ Sandy smirks when he can see again.  

“You are not, you smug _tease_ ,” he says, breathing hard.  

_Oh, take the rest off, please, I want to see all of you._

And how can he say no to the reverence in Sandy’s voice?  As soon as Sandy moves sideways off his lap, Pitch sits up and pulls at his boots, practically scrambles out of his pants, only taking care not to catch any of the jewelry, and suddenly, suddenly all that stands between him and his--enemy? friend, _lover?_ \--is the gold that covers him, the gold that does nothing to hide the flush of his skin, or the rather impressive erection rising from between his thighs.  

He looks over at Sandy, a little bit lost, but Sandy is looking at _him_ like he’s never been looked at before.  

It’s all the reassurance he needs.  

Grinning, he lays back against the pillows, stretching his arms languidly above his head, pushing his hips forward just enough, and he can practically see the fireworks going off in Sandy’s brain.

_Pitch..._

“I’m wearing them all, you know. Every gift you’ve given me, every piece you sent, it’s all here.”

_They’re breathtaking on you._

Sandy shuffles forward until he’s between Pitch’s knees, and the images running through Pitch’s mind alone are enough to send him into a full body shudder.  His dick twitches longingly against his stomach, but Sandy trails a hand down one shin and takes his ankle in his grasp.  Pitch watches, biting his lip as Sandy raises his ankle and dips his head and plants a lingering kiss to the inside, and another just an inch up, and then a third a little higher, and by the time Sandy reaches his knee, Pitch is panting audibly, twisting his hands into the bedding.  Sandy continues up the inside of his thigh and his eyes keep flicking up to meet Pitch’s own and just when Pitch thinks his wait is over, Sandy abandons that leg for the other.  

“Sandy--!” he gasps, he _whines._ “Stars, you are a _tease.”_

Sandy grins into the next kiss, pressed to the base of Pitch’s calf, and says nothing.  

“This is torture, this is unbearable, please, Sandy,” he babbles, reaching up to tangle his fingers in his own hair, his hips giving tiny upward thrusts of their own accord, he just wants to be touched, stars, just-- “Sandy, Sandy, Sandy, _ah!”_

He yells as Sandy reaches the middle of his thigh and instead of kissing, bites down once, twice, three times across his skin.  He torments the marks with his tongue and Pitch can’t tell where the line between pleasure and pain falls anymore.  And he is still so achingly hard.  

“Sandy...”

Sandy shifts between his thighs until he is lying on his stomach, and in one fluid movement, runs his tongue from base to tip up Pitch’s shaft. Pitch convulses against the bed, sure that were it not for the ring settled snug behind his balls that he would be coming already.  He’s never been touched like this, he’s never _dreamt_ of being touched like this, and he isn’t sure what is coming out of his mouth, but it probably isn’t any language he knows.  Sandy steadies himself with one hand against Pitch’s thigh, takes a handful of his balls in another, and continues running his tongue in light stripes up, and up, and up again.  It is mind-blowing, but it isn’t enough, Pitch thinks, he needs _more,_ and he realizes that Sandy is _still teasing him._

Tendrils of dreamsand snake out to flicker along his skin, teasing him, grounding him, creating a balance for his pleasure-riddled mind to cling to.  The golden sand burns against his body, and he hovers somewhere between discomfort and rapture, and then Sandy is swallowing him down and rapture wins out.  He is undone, he is flying apart, he is _still not coming stars help him._ His hands have found the headboard and the rings on his fingers scour nicks into the black wood and dig impressions into his skin and every muscle in his body is tensed with _need need need,_ and he cries out in pleas and encouragements and mingles Sandy’s name in like a prayer. His world is Sandy’s mouth and hands and this all-consuming pleasure that threatens to destroy him in the best possible way.  

And then something tips, and he is coming, sobbing as the pleasure wracks him to his core, and Sandy is there, working him through it to the end, and Pitch thinks he must lose himself for a moment, because when he next opens his eyes, Sandy is instead beside him, stroking damp hair out of his face and pressing light kisses to his nose and eyelids.  

_Are you alright?_ he asks, and Pitch nods lazily.  

“You know what?”

_Hm?_

“I do believe that’s the best present anyone has ever given me.”

Sandy laughs. _The ring or the orgasm?_

“Both. All of it.” He curls forward, reaching down to slide the ring off, and then sets it proudly on one of the pillows.  Sandy rolls his eyes and Pitch frowns at him.

“How did I end up naked and sexed and you’re still fully clothed?” he asks. “That hardly seems fair.”

Sandy smiles and sits up next to him, spreading his arms in invitation. _Are you going to complain, or are you going to help?_

Oh, yes, helping sounded nice. The jewelry clinks pleasantly as he sits up and leans forward to draw Sandy into a kiss, his hand pressed against one sand-warm cheek, and stars, is that what he tastes like?  They both come out of it smiling, and Pitch turns his attention to Sandy’s robe, trying to find where it wraps--

Maybe here? No...

“Alright, how does this work?”

Sandy is laughing at him again.

“Don’t you start, this isn’t--is this even clothing? There are no seams! You just made it _look_ like the fabric is tucked there, you _cheater._ ”  Sandy just laughs, and kisses him again, and Pitch decides two can play that game.  He fists his hands in the sandy not-clothing and draws on his powers. He can feel where it begins to dissolve, and by the time Sandy realizes what’s happening, he’s half bare and shoving Pitch gleefully away.

“Fair is fair!” Pitch insists, chuckling. “You asked me to help, after--after all. Um.”

The dreamsand clothing has been worn away, leaving Sandy, at last, completely bare before him, and he is gorgeous, certainly, more gorgeous than he’d imagined, but to be honest, Pitch had expected something--more.  

Sandy smiles at his puzzled glance. _Stars are sexless beings,_ he explains.  

“Oh.” That something is brushing the back of his mind again, something that says he should remember this, he’s--they’ve had this conversation before, he thinks, but he _knows_ that they haven’t.  How could they?

_Pitch?_

Things he can think about later. There are more pressing matters. “How--how do I--please you?” he asks.  He has still been thinking along lines of sex, and penetration, and _both of them having the same equipment_ , as it were, and it isn’t a problem, them _not_ having, he simply has to rethink, and re-imagine.  

_With your hands, and your mouth,_ Sandy says.   _It’s really no different, just, think instead of having one pleasure point, I_ am _a pleasure point._

Pitch blinks.  “Well, when you put it that way...”

He tackles Sandy to the bed in a jangle of metal, and makes it his mission to touch every inch of that golden skin, tracing patterns with his fingertips that he follows with his tongue, starting at Sandy’s mouth and winding all the way to his fingertips and toes.  The gold hangs off of his body and sounds like wind chimes as he leans over his partner, his opposite in all things, and who would have thought they could ever be lovers, could ever trust the other enough to be so bare?

Why hadn’t they done this ages ago?

He takes as much time as he is able, languishing special attention to Sandy’s soft shoulders, the rounded curve of his belly, and the insides of his wrists.  Sandy make the most exquisite sounds, the timbre of his sandspeak rising and falling like a song as Pitch explores him, his plump body twisting deliciously against the black sheets and Pitch’s own cloak that is stuck somewhere in the mix. He is beautiful, and impossible, and it all feels so unreal that Pitch is sure he will have to insist they do this again, and again, until he proves to himself that he hasn’t imagined it after all.

Both his hands and his mouth are slightly numb when he has finished, but Sandy is half-delirious with pleasure beneath him, eyes closed in bliss and    Pitch stretches out on his side, curving his long body around Sandy’s softness and buries his face in the shock of golden hair.  “Did I break you?” he teases, half-muffled and pleasantly exhausted himself. And this time he _does_ get fireworks in response, tiny golden explosions that hover in the air between them.  

“Good,” he breathes. He is grinning like an idiot and he doesn’t care. “Would you say that was successful?”

_I think it bears repeating,_ Sandy mumbles happily against him.

Pitch shakes his head, or, more like rubs his face against the top of Sandy’s head. It is all the movement he is capable of now.  “I’m going to sleep,” he says.

_I am already asleep,_ Sandy tells him.

He presses half of a kiss to the golden forehead and draws a black sheet over them both.  

“Sweet dreams, my little golden man.”

\---

He dreams of the Golden Age.  Of shooting star pilots and grand space-faring vessels.  Of war and smoke and death and the stolen moments in between battles that taste like exhaustion and a little bit like hope.  

He dreams of coming home to a dark-haired man and his dark-haired daughter, of days spent on leave in a villa with sprawling grounds where they walk for hours and of nights filled with desires but not with sleep.  

He dreams of love.  

But the dream isn’t his.  

\---

Pitch wakes to spots of gold dancing lazily across his vision.  

Butterflies. Of course.

There are butterflies in his realm of nightmares, and a warm golden body curled into his side, and all he wants is to drift back into sleep, to remember last night as it was, as they spent it, and maybe, maybe to begin thinking about what it might mean, going forward.

But the dream hangs around him like a shroud.  Dreams do not enter his home, not good ones.  There is too much darkness, too much fear, and they always end up corrupted, turned to Nightmares.

Leave it to be a good dream to be the one that unsettled him.  

He knows that Sandy likely didn’t mean to share it with him.  The past is the past, and should remain so, but he can’t unlearn what he has learned, can’t _unknow_ the dream that is the memory that Sanderson is trying to reclaim.  Shades of golden figures dance above the dreamweaver’s head even now, and Pitch watches them with a sick sort of panic growing within him.  The gold is suddenly heavy on his limbs, too heavy, the warmth of the bed too much, and he slides his arm out from under Sanderson’s shoulders, careful not to wake him, but the moment he is free he is tumbling from the bed and pulling at the jewelry, sliding rings from his fingers and bands from his arms, tearing at the chains that hold him captive. He combs the gold from his hair, strips it off his legs, tears the collar from his neck so desperately that it surely leaves bruises as it comes unstuck. He leaves it all in a pile on the floor

Sanderson shifts in his sleep, cuddling deeper into the down of the mattress, searching for someone who isn’t there.  The sheets leave him bare to the waist, and in the middle of his back is a patch of gold darker than the rest, a coppery burst etched into the smooth expanse of skin, and with a jolt, Pitch realizes that it’s a scar.

A scar from a Nightmare arrow that almost killed him.   

He has to leave. He has to--

He draws the shadows around him into clothing and ignores the way the butterflies swarm him, frantic and confused.  He spares one last look for the star asleep in his bed as he opens a portal and steps in.  

His little golden man, in love with a golden general from a golden age.  

And that is why he has to leave, he thinks as the portal closes behind him. Because he is not a ghost to be chased. Because he is not the man that Sandy loves.

Because there is nothing golden about Pitch Black.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had originally meant for there to be more sex and less angst, but uh...oops?


End file.
